RE Success Could Have Prevented Frequent Power Cuts In AP

Andhra Pradesh could have averted the power crisis over the last few months had it met its renewable energy targets. This was the finding of a report from Climate Risks Horizons, a Bengaluru based Thinktank. AP experienced more power cuts than other states in India facing a power crisis.

According to the report from Climate Risks Horizon, till March Andhra Pradesh fell 9 GW short of its 18 GW goal target for 2022. The state was to achieve 18 GW of renewable energy to help India achieve the ambitious goal of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022.

Vishnu Teja, analyst, says, “Our analysis shows that if the state had been on track to achieve our RE target, we would have had an additional 2.9 GW of solar and 4.5 of wind operating – this additional capacity would have generated enough electricity to compensate for the coal shortage. There would have been no power crisis and power plants would have been able to conserve their dwindling coal stocks for evening peak periods when solar generation dips,”.

In April 2022, India witnessed acute power shortage due to unavailability of coal supplies, with more than 100 million units (MU) of energy shortage on 8 days over the course of the month. Much of this shortage was felt in Andhra Pradesh, where discoms were forced to enforce load-shedding / rolling blackouts to ration power.

“Andhra Pradesh has plentiful wind and solar resources that it can tap to improve the resilience of its electricity system, while also keeping costs down. The April power crisis is almost certain to recur; logistical constraints in the coal supply chain are a permanent feature and climate change means more such heat waves. The state needs to be ready by ensuring it maximises its RE deployment to diversify the electricity mix and reduce dependence on coal,” said Ashish Fernandes, CEO of Climate Risk Horizons.

While most large states have missed their RE targets for 2022, considering the country as a whole has achieved just over 111 GW out of the planned 175 GW on date, Andhra is a particularly egregious case as the state virtually spiked all solar and wind projects starting 2019, when it decided to contest the prices agree to in signed PPA’s by the previous state government. The issue impacted projects worth over 3 GW, besides putting off developers from bidding any further for projects in the state even through central agencies. An effort by the state government to conduct its own auctions was thrown out by the courts.